W-NOMINATE Analysis for 2026 Who are the most conservative and progressive legislators from the 2026 General Assembly?

ICYMI: @robertkahne.com’s W-NOMINATE analysis for 2026. See where you legislator landed: myoldkypod.substack.com/p/w-nominate...

Tax Day 2026: The Average Taxpayer Paid $4,049 for War and Weapons - Institute for Policy Studies Tax Day 2026: The Average Taxpayer Paid $4,049 for War and Weapons

"The average taxpayer in 2025 paid: $4,049 for weapons and war, vs. $2,492 for Medicaid, which provided health insurance to 68.5 million Americans in 2025 — about one in five Americans."

“In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political,

I must listen to the birds.

And in order to hear the birds,

the warplanes must be silent”

- Marwan Makhoul

The story of ed tech is a repeated loop of massive hype and massive disappointment

See MOOCs, and now AI

Evidence can interrupt this unproductive cycle

The Stanford SCALE Initiative, led by rock star Prof Susanna Loeb, brings evidence to the conversation scale.stanford.edu/sites/defaul...

Predicting relationship quality with itself? A single general factor captures most of the variance across 34 common relationship measures In relationship science, researchers have generated a wide array of constructs and corresponding self-report measures to characterize, explain, and predict relationship quality – the foremost studied ...

New paper, out this week in PLOS One, suggests that most close relationship self-report measures are primarily capturing relationship quality 🧵
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Just because there are people using AI tools, does not mean the library (or research platforms) should try to encourage that. By that logic, I should be happily helping faculty use things like SciHub.

A close-up view from the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II crew’s lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, captures a total solar eclipse, with only part of the Moon visible in the frame as it fully obscures the Sun. Although the full lunar disk extends beyond the image, the Sun’s faint corona remains visible as a soft halo of light around the Moon’s edge. From this deep-space vantage point, the Moon appeared large enough to sustain nearly 54 minutes of totality, far longer than total solar eclipses typically seen from Earth. This cropped perspective emphasizes the scale of the alignment and reveals subtle structure in the corona during the rare, extended eclipse observed by the crew. The bright silver glint on the left edge of the image is the planet Venus. The round, dark gray feature visible along the Moon’s horizon between the 9 and 10 o’clock positions is Mare Crisium, a feature visible from Earth. We see faint lunar features because light reflected off of Earth provides a source of illumination. [alt text from NASA]

Eclipsed Moon, with Venus, from #Artemis II. The subtle color in the corona is beautiful.

Pope Leo XIV walks the Way of the Cross, offering lesson on power The last pontiff to carry the Cross for the entire fourteen-station Way of the Cross procession was Pope St. John Paul II.

“Make good use of the power given to you, and remember that whatever you do to another human being, especially to the small and vulnerable, you do unto me.”
cruxnow.com/vatican/2026...

Twice as big, plenty of projects: KY legislature unveils $1.7B one-time spending plan It was not public until hours before the deadline for the GOP-led legislature to pass a bill that could withstand Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto.

House Bill 900, the one-time spending bill, has lingered in the KY legislature as an $800M unspecified allocation.

The latest version, presented in free conference but not yet voted on, is $1.7B and lists ~300 projects. Here it is:

www.kentucky.com/news/politic...

NASA's Artemis 2 pilot Victor Glover listens to 'Whitey on the Moon' every Monday. This is why. "It ain't about racism. It's about the human condition."

A few people have replied to my Artemis posts with links to Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon." Here's a story from Space.com about Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, currently en route to fly around the Moon, and his connection to that piece. www.space.com/space-explor...

The astronauts are 47, 49, 50, and 50 and frankly I feel like I’m part of the crew now, too. Four of us! Four of us!

Read our full @kypsychassoc.bsky.social statement on Salazar v Chiles here: kpa.memberclicks.net/statement-on...

KY bill making sweeping changes to Medicaid adds copays (but they’re lower now) • Kentucky Lantern Emily Beauregard, the executive director of Kentucky Voices for Health, thanked the Senate for the changes to the bill and asked for continued work on it.

The Kentucky Senate has lowered the copays Medicaid patients would have to pay under a bill that proposes a work requirement and other sweeping changes to the federal-state program. 
@sarahelizabethladd.bsky.social kentuckylantern.com/2026/03/31/k...

Supreme Court rules against Colorado's conversion therapy ban on First Amendment grounds The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado counselor who challenged a law banning conversion therapy for minors, ruling that lower courts failed to apply "sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scr...

Conversion therapy is one of the most harmful practices targeted at young people. As a result of today’s decision, those practicing this anti-scientific, scam therapy may become more emboldened.

@democracyforward.org will continue to do everything in our power to protect LGBTQ+ youth.

Social media addiction is categorically not real

And

Meta getting slammed in court is good

FUN STORY!

When I started @standupforscience.net Emory leadership instructed the Wheel not to cover me or the protests we led around the WORLD.

I asked for support & Emory sent General Council to meet with me and then refused to allow the NYT photographer onto campus...BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE...

My Only Prayer We sat shiva when my mom died.

I don't know how to speak about being Jewish right now. michaelianblack.substack.com/p/my-only-pr...

Mental Disorders as Homeostatic Property Clusters This narrative review explores the idea of understanding mental disorders according to homeostatic property clusters rather than through typical classification systems.

Hey friends, my new paper was just published in JAMA Psychiatry. I draw on biological species classification to sketch a new framework for psychiatric nosology.

Brief summary follows below.

Full text link: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

🧪 #PsychSciSky #MentalHealth

We created a new scale to measure AI sycophancy in conversations with no right answer. Three facets: Uncritical Agreement, Obsequiousness, Excitement. People hate the flattery but welcome the enthusiasm. And sycophancy correlated with perceived empathy across every study.

arxiv.org/abs/2603.15448

A computer on every lap? NC schools rethinking one-to-one device access. Cost to replace laptops and doubts about learning retention have NC districts questioning practice of assigning a device to each student.

If you want better student outcomes, scrap the chromebooks & upgrade the HVAC.

Kentucky’s House Bill 338 needs your support TODAY, before a hearing on Wednesday.

The bill will make it easier to get people into housing by automatically expunging dismissed eviction records.

Please call 1-800-372-7181 and leave a message for House Judiciary Committee members to support HB 338.

This document is intended to help the Ecampus Course Development Team, as well as faculty and staff, use a principles-based approach in deciding if and how to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into course development, research, and other work projects. After reviewing the risks identified below, consider whether the overall benefits of using the tool outweigh the risks.

This AI Decision Tree someone shared with me from Oregon State is pretty great, I think, once you move past the obligatory step 1*

*important to consult existing policy, but there is no assurance said policy is good or even thoughtful

📚

ecampus.oregonstate.edu/faculty/arti...

It just sort of crystallized for me that we're now in the 3rd block Behind the Music phase of American history.

@kypsychassoc.bsky.social has been opposing these bills for over 10 years now- they’re hateful and unnecessary.

Congratulations to Me, a Kamala Harris Voter, Who Got Exactly What I Voted For “Trump’s best foreign policy? Not starting any wars… He has my support in 2024 because I know he won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas....

"I was told in no uncertain terms what my vote would unleash. I then cast that vote for Harris, and today, as the world map again looks like a supercharged holiday display of twinkling critical alerts, it’s hard not to recognize the throughline from my ballot to cable news chyron."

Yes. He’s been clear about this since he first got popular!

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t

I can't fucking believe we're doing this again.

💕 Does oxytocin help wounds heal faster? Not on its own.

In 80 healthy couples, intranasal oxytocin accelerated wound healing only when paired with affectionate touch and partner appreciation.

Oxytocin acts as a "social amplifier".

buff.ly/IvuBcTq

#Oxytocin #SocialHealth #RelationshipScience

Federal funding for US biomedical research is moribund.

Since October 1 2025, NIH is -80% in new grants and -70% in values (total dollars).

Labs are closing down and researchers are leaving science.

To what end?

American Psychological Association Reaffirms Support For Trans Youth Care, Pushes Back Against NYT A recent article from Jesse Singal in the New York Times seemed to indicate the organization might be quietly retreating from supporting trans youth care.

1. Major news on trans youth care. The American Psychological Association has reaffirmed its full support for its 2024 guidelines supporting trans youth car.e

It provided documentation showing Jesse Singal mischaracterized their position in the NYT.

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